Various types of remotely controlled toy and wireless remote control unit combinations are known. Those in the remote control toy art are constantly challenged to devise the new toys and new ways of remotely operating those toys. The challenge at the high end is to provide the greatest number of separately remotely controlled capabilities and the finest level of operational control to most closely mimic the operation of a real thing (living or mechanical). The challenge at the low end is to minimize production costs while providing the most remotely controlled operating capabilities of the toy. Another challenge at the low end is to simplify control of a toy to enable younger children, in some cases even toddlers, to operate such toys themselves for their own amusement.
In the remote control toy vehicle art, one common solution to the challenges at the low end was to provide a motorized toy vehicle with a tone signal generating wireless remote control. Whenever the tone signal was generated by user depression of a button or other manual input device, the vehicle receiving the tone signal would move forward for as long as the tone signal was received. If one or more other, different responses was desired of the toy vehicle, like reverse operation or steering, the transmitter was configured to generate and the toy vehicle configured to decode a different control signal for each different operation Thus, for forward and reverse operation, two separate control signals had to be generated and decoded. If steering was added to forward and reverse operation, four separate control signals were required.
One innovation to provide propulsion and steering capability in a low end toy vehicle provided with a single reversible electric motor was “J steering” or “J turning”. A single output drive from the motor was fed to wheels on opposite sides of the vehicle through separate drive shafts. One drive shaft/wheel combination was connected directly with the motor drive. The other was connected through a “slide” or planetary gear and an idler gear. When the motor was driven in a first, forward propelling direction, both wheels were driven in the same rotational direction on a common axis between the two wheels. When the motor was driven in an opposite direction, the direction of the first wheel was reversed but the slide or planetary gear was pushed out of engagement with the second wheel's axle and into engagement with the idler gear which was itself engaged with the second wheel's axle. The idler gear reversed the rotation between the planetary gear and the second wheel's axle, which caused the second wheel's axle to continue to rotate in the first (i.e. forward propelling) direction. Thus, the driven wheels were now driven in opposite directions causing the vehicle to turn while backing up. By controlling ratios of the various gears including the idler, the two powered wheels can be made to rotate at different RPMs and the vehicle made to follow a circular path while backing up. The vehicle could be driven forward in a relatively straight line. If it needed to turn, it would have to reverse itself along the circular path until pointing in the desired direction, at which point it could be commanded to drive forward again. While this simplified the design of the vehicle, two separate command signals for forward and reverse movement still had to be generated by the remote controller and decoded by the vehicle.
One recent combination intended to simplify the provision of forward and reverse operation in a low end, remotely controlled toy vehicle has been to provide the toy vehicle with an on-off switch, a wireless signal receiver and control circuitry. The control circuitry was configured to supply power to an electric motor propelling the toy vehicle in a first direction, preferably a reverse J turn, for as long as the on-off switch was on. The direction of power supplied to the motor was switch when a fixed frequency or “tone” control signal was received from the remote control unit, causing the vehicle to move forward in a straight line. This simplified the design of both the transmission/reception circuits as only a single tone signal needed to be generated and identified to control forward and reverse movement.
It was thought this simplified system might be improved in other ways.